Posts In The “Destinations” Category
Port Townsend, WA is a Victorian-era waterfront city with a vibrant artist and maritime community. Its Wooden Boat Festival, held annually for nearly a half-century, is the largest in the continent and last year drew 10,000 attendees. We have anchored off Port Townsend many times in the past, enjoying the view to the city’s many…
Langley is a compact, restaurant-filled town perched on the cliffs above Saratoga Passage on Whidbey Island north of Seattle. We had visited by boat many times, but not for over a decade. We returned this year for a weekend in the Inn at Langley’s spectacular Saratoga Suite, with its large deck overlooking the water (pictured…
Even if we weren’t Formula 1 fans, it would be hard not to be carried away by the excitement when Ferrari won the Italian Grand Prix at their home track of Monza Circuit last weekend. In a contest that played out to the final laps, Ferrari driver Charles LeClerc picked up the lead when McLaren…
We had a fantastic time on our week-long Danube River cruise aboard the AmaMagna. Stops along the way included Pecs in Hungary, Vukovar in Croatia, Novi Sad and Belgrade in Serbia, Vidin and Ruse in Bulgaria, and Bucharest in Romania. As with Budapest, these cities all date back to the Middle Ages and have suffered…
The cities of Buda and Pest became one in 1849 with the construction of the famous Szechenyi Chain Bridge, the first permanent bridge across the Danube River (pictured above). Despite centuries of European conflict dating back to the Middle Ages, multiple occupations by conquering forces, and decades of Communist rule, both sides are full of…
The city of Everett, about 30 miles (48km) north of Seattle, evolved and prospered through transportation. The 1893 arrival of the Great Northern Railway transformed the small lumber town into a major lumber center that supported several large sawmills, including the self-proclaimed largest shingle mill in the world. Access to new timberland and other resources…
The Puget Sound port city of Tacoma was founded in 1872 and experienced what author Rudyard Kipling described as “a boom of the boomiest” when the following year it was selected as the Pacific Northwest terminus of the transcontinental Northern Pacific Railway. After a brief downturn during the Panic of 1893, the city bounced back…
Bainbridge Island, across the Puget Sound from Seattle, has had a robust Japanese community since immigrants first arrived there in the late 1800s. Their world was shattered following the air attack on Pearl Harbor, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order for the nation-wide internment of over 125,000 US residents of Japanese descent,…
Alderbrook Resort on Hood Canal has been a popular Pacific Northwest vacation destination since it first opened in 1913. Back then, no roads reached the resort and guests arrived by canoe. The resort has been through many owners and remodels since opening, and now is easily reachable by road on Washington State Route 106. But…
The historic Point Ruston ferry was built in Maine in 1936, and initially served as the navy ferry Aquidneck YFB-14 between Newport RI and Goat Island. The Pierce County Ferry System purchased the ship from the navy in 1971, and ran it as the M/V Steilacoom on the route between its namesake city and Anderson…
On a rare weekend actually spent at home in Seattle, we managed to watch three live hockey games over four days. Two were Seattle Kraken NHL games, and the third was an infrequent return to Seattle by the Thunderbirds Junior A team for the “Battle of the Sound” against the Portland Winterhaks. We often attended…
Marina del Rey, in Los Angeles County, California, contains the largest artificial pleasure boat harbor in North America. Construction began in the 1950s and today the basin has a capacity for 5,000 vessels, supports five different yacht clubs and is lined with restaurants, shops, condos, and hotels. The first hotel built was the historic Marina…
We traveled a lot this winter, both near and far. The first, and most major, trip was an unforgettable journey over New Year’s to Antarctica, where we flew on a DC-3 to stand at the geographic South Pole at altitude 9,301 ft (2,835m). As part of this adventure, we also made stops in dynamic Doha,…
Completed in September, 2023 at a cost of $2.3 billion, the Sphere in Las Vegas is 366 feet (111 m) tall and 516 feet (157 m) wide. The exterior is covered with 1.2 million hockey puck-sized LED lights that are programmed with an ever-changing array of spectacular images. The interior features a 16K 160,000-square-foot (15,000…
We’ve been toying with the idea of a high-speed weekend boat to more easily take advantage of the water-based attractions in the area, so made that our focus at this year’s Seattle Boat Show. Brands that we toured include Arksen, Axopar, Coastal Craft, and Saxdor. Wellcraft also is of interest, but they weren’t represented at…
Despite all our travels, Jennifer had never been to Mexico and James had only briefly visited once, years ago for a conference in Cancun. Jennifer finally reached America’s neighbor to the south early this year on a fabulous weekend trip to Cabo San Lucas at the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula. James started…
Gig Harbor is a wonderfully sheltered and tranquil harbor on the opposite side of the Puget Sound from Tacoma. We’ve spent many nights anchored there on Dirona, enjoying the lights reflecting into the still waters from the homes and businesses that ring the shore. And we always made a point to take the tender ashore…
We enjoyed our first weekend at Point Ruston so much that we returned for another earlier this year. We love the rooms at the Point Ruston Waterfront hotel, with sweeping views to Commencement Bay, where we can get a little work done by the window and see what’s happening outside, both on land and the…